


as a dagger loves a back

by spacehairdresser



Category: Monstress (Comics)
Genre: Bittersweet, F/F, Femslash, Moral Dilemmas, Mostly Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-17
Updated: 2016-06-17
Packaged: 2018-07-15 17:16:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,548
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7231597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacehairdresser/pseuds/spacehairdresser
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>“I don’t mind that the Council wants a set of eyes in my laboratory, but I’d like to know right now: Which do you consider yourself, Lady Atena, a bureaucrat or a spy?”</i>
</p>
<p>
<i>That nearly startles a laugh from her. There’s a little too much amusement in her voice when she replies, bargaining on the answer closer to the truth, “A spy, of course.”</i></p><p>
<i>“I’m glad to hear it.”</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	as a dagger loves a back

**Author's Note:**

  * For [furchte_die_schildkrote](https://archiveofourown.org/users/furchte_die_schildkrote/gifts).



The first time she sees her brother at the end of a leash, she vows to hate Sophia forever. It takes all of Atena’s carefully-practiced control to keep her eyes on her and ignore Resak as she would ignore any slave. The woman holds the chain like a dancer holds a fan, stands like she expects to be watched, but nothing about her says _performance_ to Atena. That is frightening.

She has heard the word _genius_ applied to Sophia, though she’s heard plenty of other words as well. _This will be useful_ , she tells herself. If she can steal just a bit of Sophia’s trove of information, it will be worth it.

“Lady Sophia,” she says, bowing just a bit more deeply than necessary, “It is a pleasure to meet you.”

“It is business to meet me.” When Atena looks up, she sees a cool smile and not the slightest inclination to return the bow. “I don’t mind that the Council wants a set of eyes in my laboratory, but I’d like to know right now: Which do you consider yourself, Lady Atena, a bureaucrat or a spy?”

That nearly startles a laugh from her. There’s a little too much amusement in her voice when she replies, bargaining on the answer closer to the truth, “A spy, of course.”

Sophia inclines her head slightly, which Atena realizes is her bow. “I’m glad to hear it.”

Entirely in spite of herself, a tiny and traitorous part of Atena almost likes her for that.

 

In the laboratory, it is easy to maintain a cold aversion. It’s hardly the first time Atena has seen lilium produced, but it never gets easier. (Or so she tells herself. She’s beginning to think that it does, and the idea is as revolting as the process itself.) She endures the layered stenches of rot and chemicals that hang in the cavernous room and poses concise, clinical questions to the novices. _Tell me about the process of dissecting an Arcanic_ , she asks like it means nothing to her. _What quantity of lilium is produced here in an average week?_

Atena had feared, for some reason, that Sophia would bother her, but she quickly discovers that the other woman is a fanatic about her work. Any questions turned toward her are deflected curtly, and she has little to no patience for the young girls who turn to her for help. “If you can’t figure it out yourself, you shouldn’t be here,” Atena hears her say half a dozen times before the day is out.

“They seem to expect me to be their convent mother,” Sophia murmurs to her at one point, disdainful. Atena is startled to be addressed, but doesn’t let herself show it.

“They’re smart girls,” she says impassively. “They just can’t keep up with you.”

She doesn’t mean for it to be a compliment. Sophia is brilliant and surely knows it, but her sharp amber eyes still turn on Atena with interest. “Can you?”

“I’m here to observe your progress, aren’t I? It rather helps if I can understand it.”

Sophia holds her gaze for a moment, then turns back to the Arcanic body on the table as though they hadn’t spoken. Only after a minute does she add, seemingly as an afterthought, “Then you’re smarter than most of the Mother Superior’s puppets.”

To deny the label — Atena would either have no way to defend herself, or reveal too much, so she says nothing at all. _Besides_ , she reminds herself sternly, _there is no reason to care what this woman thinks of you_. No reason at all.

 

The second time Atena comes to the Zamora compound is only days after she left the first time. It is not on the orders of Mother Superior, but by Sophia’s invitation. She stared at the handwritten note when an anxious-looking novice brought it to her door, scanning the scrawled message for longer than she really needed to parse the words. Then, determinedly thinking only of her brother and not at all of Sophia’s clever eyes and graceful movements, she wrote a brief note of acceptance.

When Atena arrives, Sophia is holed up in the library, bowed over some papers at a dark wood table. Her hair is loose, spilling over her shoulders and reflecting the light that filters in from the high windows. Atena does not allow her gaze to linger.

Without looking up or giving any other indication she is aware Atena has arrived, Sophia says, “I need assistance with these equations, and the novices do nothing but get underfoot.” She glances, then, at Atena, adjusting her glasses. “I have heard you’ve a brilliant mind for mathematics.” Her lips, painted a carnal red, curl. “You are much talked about in certain circles, I’ve discovered.”

Once again, Atena nearly laughs, even as a spark of worry flickers deep in her mind. Why should Sophia ask after her, and how thoroughly has she looked? She wouldn’t expect anything half-hearted from the Cumaea. “That’s why you invited me here?”

Sophia rises, finally, languorous as any cat, and that hungry smirk broadens. “Not at all.”

 

The sex means nothing, because they are Cumaea and thus it always means nothing. Each time, as she washes herself and pulls her clothes from floor, she persuades herself that it’s just easier this way. Sophia makes no secret of their relationship. The looks Atena gets from the servants and the whispers she hears from the novices are not unfamiliar ones. This is a good thing. There is little reason to be concerned by the comings and goings of an inspector sent by the Mother Superior; there is no reason at all to be concerned by those of a lover.

So she learns what she came to learn, committing to memory dozens of secrets that never make their way to official reports, and she lets herself slip, bit by bit. She has set rules for herself, and she breaks all of them.

Her first rule is that she will not leave the compound with Sophia, but time and again they find themselves out on the town, sometimes looking for something in particular, sometimes just seeking fresher air. They talk, long conversations that are discomfiting in how comfortable they are. Sophia speaks of her infamous mother and her infinite work, and Atena talks about carefully unspecific subjects for as long as Sophia will let her. It is frightening, she realizes, how much she does not want to lie to this brilliant and monstrous woman.

Her second rule is that she will not take meals with Sophia, but on the days she doesn’t join her in the laboratory, it’s hard to find other times to talk. More often than not, and not entirely to her surprise, Sophia will wander into the kitchens and pick food apparently at random. It is Atena who, in defiance of her own determination to remain distant, convinces her to sit down and eat like a civilized person. And there their circles of conversation begin again, teasing and arguing as if they’ve known each other for years.

(One day, her carriage travels into the compound alongside a caravan of Arcanic slaves. A little boy with claws and yellow, slit-pupiled eyes reaches his scrawny arm between the bars and cries something to Atena. Her hands curl in her lap as she thinks of the boxes of claws and glass jars of emptily staring eyes she has seen in the laboratory, of Sophia slicing across a tiny stomach. _This is the woman I am falling in love with._ )

Her third rule is that she will not sleep in Sophia’s bed, but more mornings than not she wakes with the woman’s body warm against her own. _Everyone looks innocent when they’re asleep_ , Atena tells herself. It is not some property unique to Sophia, the way the first rays of dawn melt away all that cold, mad energy. That makes it worse, though, that she always wishes her awake, that it is becoming harder not to spend all her time dueling Sophia’s odd mixture of cruelty and charm.

Her fourth rule was discarded even before the rest. Maybe on the first day they met.

 

Months become one year and then two of these routines and the collapse becomes inevitable, but not even in sleepless nights of worry did Atena imagine it could be so cruel. Sophia falls, she falls, and all of Zamora falls with them. A massacre, it is called afterwards.

Promises of war hum in the streets when she goes out in the days after, but she rarely does. She is hustled to the gallows some afternoons, to make speeches in front of corpses, but mostly she sits at Sophia’s bedside and waits for the day she needs to leave her.

“Do I disgust you now?” Sophia asks once, between the changes of bandages. Her skin, such as it is, is still raw, an angry, shiny red. Atena has kept her from mirrors, even though she asks. _It’s pointless_ , she always answers. _The lilium will heal you soon, so there’s no point in upsetting yourself_. Sophia always laughs hoarsely and claims she isn’t that vain, which is probably true. This is not a question about her face.

“Not half as much as you should,” she answers.

**Author's Note:**

> I tumbl at [spacehairdresser](http://spacehairdresser.tumblr.com), if you would like to yell with me about lesbian witch nuns.
> 
> Comments are always appreciated. ♡


End file.
